The goal of the proposed study is to develop a typological description of individuals who die violent deaths: accident, suicide and homicide. The typological description will be based upon the premise that violent death occurs as a result of a complex interaction among a) environmental influences, b) personal characteristics and c) the occurance of stressful life events. As such, violent death is conceptualized as a multidimensional, multidetermined phenomenon. Traditionally, past research has focused on the study of a single mode of violent death, as if each mode were unrelated to others. Another problem has been the choice of populations to study. Despite the fact the minority group persons are known to be disproportionately involved in violent death, little scientific knowledge exists concerning the interaction between racial and ethnic group status and violent death. The proposed study will address these two deficits, particularly the racial and ethnic group dimensions, by focusing on a representative sample of all persons who die violent deaths during a three year study period in three urban cities. Of particular interest is the Spanish-heritage population as it is dispersed throughout the Southwest United States. Thus, collection of data will occur in Los Angeles, Denver, and Albuquerque on the basis of a) environmental data based on 974 census tract areas in these three cities, b) individual subject-victim data based on a "dimensions" evolved from a) above and c) stressful life event data and other psychological data forthcoming from interviews with significant others. Cluster analysis will be employed to develop a social area analysis of the three cities and person cluster analysis will result in a typology of victims of violent death. These person-types, or groupings of persons based on their relation to census tract variables, will be the basis of other comparative analyses. The potential importance of the proposed work is chiefly in its promise of providing a valuable description of violent death, not only to enhance our basic understanding of these phenomena but such a typology also would aid in locating and identifying prevention services.